This is a true story.

Last week I traveled a great distance to attend my high school class reunion. It was the 40 year reunion and the most recent previous reunion I had attended was the 20 year reunion. I finally realize I'm getting old!

Almost all of my classmates have attended kindergarten through high school together. We are a tight and small group from a small midwestern town. These people are the next thing to family I have.

The first person I met going into the reunion was Ted. Ted is, and always was, tall, athletic (football quarterback and basketball captain), smart, handsome, kind, humble, considerate, and a good catholic.

Ted and I talked a long time and I learned that he had fought the good fight and won against cancer three times in the past thirty years. He was divorced but had fought hard to keep his wife from leaving him and their child when she had an affair. Ted is also forgiving. As a good catholic, Ted refused to remarry the sweet young catholic girl he met and had been friends with for 14 years after his divorce. These two are both catholic and know that Ted's mother would be ashamed of her son if he committed adultery by getting remarried after a divorce. Ted and his friend date but do not sleep together or live together. They do attend church together but due to Ted's mother being disapproving, Ted sits in the front and his female friend sits in the back of the church.

Ted and I talked about our lives today and in the past. We shared funny stories and updated each other on our fellow classmates and families. Ted never gossiped but he loved to talk about his daughter.

This morning, one week after my reunion, I awoke to my phone ringing. One of my classmates was calling to let me know that Ted had died in his sleep on Sunday morning. Ted had lived most of the past 25 years without the comfort of a marital companion only because his family and religion taught him that he would be sinning and going to damnation if he remarried after his divorce. Ted could have asked to have his marriage dissolved by the church authorities but that would have required him to say that his first marriage was a mistake and he felt that his daughter was not a mistake.

First of all, I'm very sorry to hear that your friend died and he sounds like a good, moral person.

Now I've said that, I do have to ask where does individual choices come into this. Ted had the choice of obeying or disobeying his mother, as a grown adult. Ted had the choice of remarrying if he wished but didn't want to pay the price of having his first marriage annulled through the church.

I can't see how the church is to blame for this, even if he was brainwashed from a young age to believe the Catholic church is true. The church gave him options.

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but I have my own family members who are always never to blame for their own choices and genuinely believe I made a career and nice life by pure luck. Apparently life choices and hard work pay no part at all.

I agree about personal choice and how does one church forbidding divorced people to remarry lead to hatred I'd all religion? Pretty broad brush there.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/2014 04:57AM by bona dea.

Did I say I hated all religion? I think you have a misunderstanding of how the word "bias" is generally defined.

Regardless of what word you used, you are taking the beliefs of one church and one man's personal decision as a reason for bias against religion in general. I think my point stands.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/2014 06:05PM by bona dea.

The OP offered a thoughtful and heartfelt example to illustrate one of the reasons that he has a bias against religion. It is valuable in that there are an endless supply of similar examples that many of us could offer. I do not see the broad generalities and lack of critical analysis that you accuse him of.

You're right. It's just a bias against Ted.

I am in total agreement with your assessment that Ted had his free choice throughout his life. And I don't think Ted died miserable. I think he happily left this world believing he was right with his Lord and would receive his just reward.

This is just a true story for all to take from it what they will.

Sure, life is full of choices, but religion gives us ridiculous choices: choose to remain in a loveless marriage both admit was a mistake, or violate the religion's tenet, bringing condemnation from community and family.

Yes, Ted could have married his love, but then he would have upset his mother. Because his Catholic mother had been taught that divorce was a sin, it would diminish her son in her eyes and make their children virtual bastards. Instead, he choose loneliness for his family over ostracism with his love.

As a gay man, I know the dilemma religion imposes. I've had 3 friends commits suicide because of the pressures Mormonism put on them for being gay. One decided to divorce, but his wife punished him by banning him from ever seeing his kids again. Because he was gay, her entire family testified against him and his family refused to help him, so he lost contact with his kids. He was excommunicated and had nothing but loss around him, so he took his life. Yes, that was a choice, but he would have never been in such a position if religious bigotry hadn't forced him there.

That's true for every topic discussed on this site, though...

I agree with you - it is all so stupid. We fight wars and live lives of "quiet desperation" because our minds have been hijacked by an ancient belief that has little relevance in the present.

Sorry about Ted and his girlfriend...

I can't begin to judge what is a right decision for anyone else.
Only for myself.

Ted, is an example of making choices that fit his World View.
He has the same right as all of us to make choices and decisions based on what we think is right and correct and best for each of us. He is not alone. It's very common for people with strong religious faith to follow those edicts to their death.

I commend him for living according to his faith, his conscience, and his integrity.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/2014 01:47PM by SusieQ#1.

I honor Ted as a man of integrity for upholding what he felt God truly expected of him. It was his decision to make and apparently it was this decision that the lady in his life also felt was right. Some of you are probably thinking that what he did was crazy, but he would have felt miserable if he had committed what he viewed as sin. Personally I don't view this behavior as that of a brainwashed man. It is simply a man of faith living his life as his God would want him to live it.

I'm terribly sorry to hear about your friend but happy to know that you had the chance to catch up before his passing. He sounded like a nice man and good father.

It is so easy to say it was his choice. That he was just going along with his "world view." But was he?

Indoctrination thrives on slanted views, skewed thinking, and withheld information. So, if a person under those circumstances is making a decision, he is not making a decision with informed information. It's like deciding if you look fat while staring in fun house mirrors.

Was Patty Hearst just going along with her world view when she finally "joined" the Symbionese Liberation Army? Did being kidnapped and locked in the closet have nothing to do with her decisions? After her kidnapping her "world view" had been altered by brainwashing,so how do you hold her responsible 100% for those decisions based on faulty information? So they locked her up, but there were a helluva lot of grey areas to consider there that should not be overlooked.

Churches do a number on people. All of them. It may not be as obvious as a kidnapping and being held prisoner, but the same effect can come about through small steady doses, like say, what churches do.

So this friend of yours made his choices based on his Catholic rules. That is sad when you realize he could have made his choices based on clear headed critical thinking and following his own instincts. What purpose does it serve to deny yourself the touch of the person you love so deeply? What purpose? Who benefits?

What is strange to me is for adults to lead their lives based on these ancient and contradictory edicts passed through the generations - and never wondering what sort of "God" they are trying to please.

Such tiny little gods they worship, gods whose rules and behavior is so much like the bigoted little rules of human men.

And although adult, they cower on their knees and never dare use their minds to ask a question.

sisterexmo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What is strange to me is for adults to lead their
> lives based on these ancient and contradictory
> edicts passed through the generations - and never
> wondering what sort of "God" they are trying to
> please.
>
> Such tiny little gods they worship, gods whose
> rules and behavior is so much like the bigoted
> little rules of human men.
>
> And although adult, they cower on their knees and
> never dare use their minds to ask a question.


I'm in total agreement. Religion infantalizes people.

Have to say, if he truly wanted to marry her, he would have.

Who knows if there were other factors involved. Catholics get annulments fairly regularly and then can marry. Maybe they were both happy with things as they were.

People who hold to their position out of integrity and faith are to be commended, in my view.

My husband was a man of faith and integrity. His word was his bond.

He believed that his faith was founded in principles that would bring him joy in this life and the after life. He never wavered.

There are millions/billions probably of people of faith that have lived on this earth and now live on this earth. No way is that some kind of brainwashing.

Thousands of religions have been teaching their belief systems to believers by faith.

It's probably the most consistent thing most human beings do.
Subscribing to a World View that is more important than anything else and aligning themselves with a deity and/or savior is how most humans figure out the world they live in.

My husband lived his life the way he wanted. I honor his integrity and honesty and allegiance to his faith.

I changed my mind and didn't agree. We did not agree. But we agreed to disagree. He, however, respected my right to my own personal belief system. The least, I could do is do the same.

Well we've all suffered much at the hands of man made religions haven't we? Some stories can be told, like yours, others just can't be told. They're more complicated. But it sucks.

Men invented Gods.....for wealth and power over others.

How is it that Ted and his female friend could date, but at church services, she had to SIT IN THE BACK, instead of in the front with Ted and his mother?

Good question. And it is hard to call that a healthy world view. World views come in all shapes and sizes and many of them include this type of treatment of women along with their other bigotries. I am sure Ted was a great guy, good heart, and meant well, but a really nice guy only does that if he has a very unhealthy world view due to his religion. That falls well out of to the bounds of integrity.

I think the OP has a great point and is being kind when he uses the word "bias" rather than something stronger.

I meant that if his mother knew they were dating, why couldn't the lady friend sit with them? The church wouldn't care where the woman sat.

Thanks. I kind of misunderstood. That one is more about the mother and a son who needed to cut some apron strings I would say.

That sounds about right.There are no assigned seats and Catholics wouldn't likely notice or care. Sounds like a mamma's boy.

I hate what religion does to people.

donbagley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I hate what religion does to people.


Me too. Its very toxic.

Yes we do all have a choice, but we all handle belief differently. Some let it control them, it did me for many years. I say look at belief in itself and the effects it has on humans. Your friend, driving jets into buildings, snake handling at church, not allowed to use electricity, women not wearing makeup, no coffee, tea etc, no swimming on Sunday, u get the picture, its the effect that we allow belief to have on us.

Pooped, I get what you're saying, and I'm right there with you. It's upsetting that religion creates a reality for these people that prevents them from truly living the happy life that they COULD if they didn't believe certain things were true. It's sad that because of Ted's beliefs, he never married the woman he loved.

Sure, like others have said, it's his choice and rights to his beliefs and yadda yadda yadda. I don't see that as being the issue here, though. We all agree it's his right to have those beliefs. That being said, I do think he would have been happier to have felt okay marrying the lady he loved.

It's something I find frustrating as well. The realization that so much of religion - almost any religion - is giving restrictions and preventing happiness...for no real, valid reason *in my opinion*. There are so many examples of this.

And, being taught a religion from birth isn't the same as choosing it. The way our minds work is to accept those things as literal truths. So, it's really difficult for someone to break away from that (as most of us here can relate to).

How sweet it would have been for him to be able to marry the new lady.

Sorry you lost your friend. (((hugs)))

Thanks for your kind words (and hugs) layla. You summed-up my feelings better than I could.